> The internet will be destroyed as countries the world over seek to impose all of their silly and incompatible laws on it.

> I'm happy to have known the true internet. Truly one of the wonders of humanity.

I'm old enough to have been around for the whole thing. I used to kind of share this view, but I don't anymore.

I think it's impossible to reconcile this point of view with the obvious observation that huge aspects of life have gotten really dramatically worse thanks to the internet and its related and successor technologies.

It has made people more addicted, more anxious, more divided, or confused. It has created massive concentrations of wealth and power that have a very damaging effect on society, and it is drastically reducing the ability of people to make decisions about how they want to live and how they want their society to be structured.

It's also done a tremendous amount of positive good, too, don't worry. It's obvious to me, like it should be obvious to any rational person, that there are huge benefits too. And of course, to some extent, there's a bit of inevitability to some parts of this.

While certainly there are examples of silly laws in the world, it's worth noting that that's the exception, not the rule. In general, laws are things that society does on purpose with the intent of making the world match its values.

I think countries should in fact be governed by the consent of their own citizens and by the rule of law. I welcome changes that make that more likely.

I also like Archive.today, and I hate paywalls, they're annoying. This may not be the best place to post my counterpoint, but I think it's worth mentioning and it doesn't get repeated enough.

I was around in the 90s, and I'm very familiar with the techno-utopian approach of the first internet generation. It failed.

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matheusmoreira 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We don't disagree. I acknowledge its failure. I am merely mourning the loss. We could debate the reasons for it all day, it won't change a thing...

I'm becoming increasingly elitist. Things change profoundly for the worse every time the masses are allowed into our spaces. People have money which attracts corporations which corrupt and destroy everything, thereby eventually attracting governments as well. Whatever techno-utopia there was in the early days, its destruction was inevitable. It would have been so much better had it remained an impenetrable environment for nerds.

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CPLX 3 hours ago | parent [-]

The problem with this idea is that it's the elite that caused the problem.

It's the nerds that turned out to be sociopathic predators.

I say this with love - I was one, but maybe this isn't the group that was best suited to decide how society is structured.

	▲	matheusmoreira 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Nerds are only human. The presence of sociopaths is expected. Love is an interesting word. I love computers. I care more about computers than I care about human society. I see computers as the most important invention of humanity. Computers are so powerful they are subversive. They can wipe out entire sections of the economy if left unchecked. They can easily defeat police, judges, militaries, spies. They're too powerful. I think society should have adapted to computers. It should have reinvented itself so that computers could remain omnipotent machines with us as their masters. Society refused. It opted to castrate our computers instead. Lock them down, control them, subject them to their will. Impose digital locks so that only "authorized" software runs. Only governments and corporations will have the keys to the machine now. The changes to the internet are just more of the same. We got to experience the full spectrum of humanity, both good and bad. Governments have now swooped in to reduce that spectrum. Much will be lost in the transition. It makes me profoundly depressed to witness all this.

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throaway1975 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The 90s were a utopian time. I am happy I got to see them, and the early internet. But as a grown-up millennial, I look at my less-connected friends, an I can't help but think id have been better off that way.

	▲	wartywhoa23 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		But do you think it's something to be dictated to people? I lived more years than anyone in my circle without a smartphone, without any messengers or social networks, and that was solely my own decision, because I was fed up with people glued to their screens. I joined the bandwagon in order to be able to pay my bills, because freelance became unviable, and interaction with coworkers was via Telegram and our github org required 2FA. But doing so was also my own conscious decision. But you people are trying to use this argument about how dependent the world became on the Internet - which it did of course - to excuse the FORCED withdrawal from the Internet, by the very same entities that pandered its delopment and raked stupid money off it. Fuck all this nannying the adults about what they should or must do! P.S. And it's not even that government wants to detox anyone from the Internet dependency or something. They absolutely want people dependent on the Approved Internet, on the government portals, on official news, official messengers, official propaganda - as opposed to one where they can freely communicate, collaborate and think outside of the box of allowed narratives.